>>...let's look at the companies today...wars that only applied to nerds in the late 80s.
Much superior technology, loved by nerds, totally crushed...I owned an Amiga and that experience has made me more conservative about embracing new computer technology.
I think the whole "game machine" thing is one of the things that helped to kill the Amiga, so I don't see how that would have been an advantage to Atari either.
Back then computers were still divided into "home" computers and business computers, and Atari and Amiga were placed in the "home" category because of the games (and color, hi-res graphics, audio, etc...). They were never really taken that seriously by business which really hurt their market share.
Amiga was really hurt too because not many people bought Wordperfect when it became available. All the main business software makers like lotus and dbase abandoned their cross-development when Wordperfect had weak sales (part of the reason for Wordperfect's failure was that it did not really take much advantage of the GUI and other features available that people bought the Amiga for to begin with.)
But can you add a faster video card, harddrive, or cpu to it any time you want? Do you have 10,000rpm drives or RAID as even an option?
Generally the desktop will have faster (and much easier to replace) components. My $1000 system will blow away a $1000 laptop, and it will still have a snappier feel than a $2000 laptop. External add-ons (like a Blu Ray drive) are usually twice as much as the cheaper internal options available for a desktop.
The harddrives and video cards are generally faster in desktops, and if you build it yourself you will probably have a much better, faster motherboard as well. If you build it yourself, you can also overclock some CPUs. My Core 2 Duo processor goes from about 2ghz to 3ghz by just changing one setting in the bios.
Porn does teach you to ejaculate outside of the orifices, so I guess it could be good AIDs prevention in some way. Semen in the eye might be risky behavior though. A lot of porn does not encourage condom use though, and it often encourages anal sex.
I don't know what effect porn has otherwise. Does jackin' it to porn satisfy their sexual urges, or does looking at porn make them want to go out and have sex more?
I don't think a kid occasionaly coming across porn is that big of deal, but free and unfettered access to it by kids is probably not that good of an idea. If nothing else, it is a time management issue - and porn can be a big time-sink.
>>TFA mentions that Stanford and other schools charge high "Reconnection" fees after they block your MAC for sharing files. Why don't they just do something like that and make a load of money?
I think there needs to be due process, but I think the punishments should be even stricter. It should be about teaching the students to be better citizens and to prepare them for the real world. Review the case like they would any type of academic misconduct, and for minor violations, especially with freshmen and sophmores, you get a slap on the wrist or maybe pay a small fine. But for excessive downloading and repeat offenders, especially for seniors, they should be expelled like you would be for cheating or plagiarism, or like you would be fired from your job. You could even have everybody sign an acknowledgment that they can be expelled for illegal downloading.
>>It doesn't help the students, and it doesn't seem to me to help society.
Part of the role of the university is to make the student a better citizen, and obeying the laws is part of that. It also gets them ready for the real world - you can't download anything you want at work and not expect to get fired.
>>Ahh yes, because somewhere along the line "guilty until proven innocent" became the de facto standard.
That's the way it usually works on campus. In the case of academic misconduct, if a professor accuses you of cheating or plagiarism, the burden of proof is much more heavy on the student.
I think the people that made away with all the money were doing more than just playing the game so this really isn't an issue - they would stick one dollar in, then cash out without playing and recieve 10 dollars, and they would keep doing this over and over. No matter how foriegn the game looked, those that made a lot of money (and who are in trouble) were the ones who figured this out. Your average gambler would just put money in, and either play till it was gone or until he hit a good size payout.
What about the whole digital convergence thing, like with TVs? I personally want more and more screen space. A laptop is kind of a limited paradigm - looking at the world through a 15" window.
Does it have a 22" (or even larger) wide screen and a full size keyboard? Can you upgrade/repair it yourself?
Desktops always just feel a lot faster to me. Maybe it has changed lately, but the harddrives used to always be painfully slow in laptops. I had a laptop that I thought was fine, but once I started using a new desktop with 22" widescreen and 10,000rpm hardrives, the laptop is a painful experience.
That looks interesting, but I was thinking more of a just a 2nd display rather than a remote desktop on a lightweight computer. The original price on that thing was the same as a laptop - no wonder it failed. At $200 it might be okay for somethings, but $400 still seems a little steep. I don't imagine the video card was too great, while in the case of a pure 2nd display it would be utilizing whatever video card your desktop has.
You could wire a transmitter/access point into everyroom near the lights. You would still have to wire indoors, but you would have untethered movement.
Could this kind of bandwidth run a remote display?
I always thought it would be cool to have a pad that was nothing more than a screen and input device that you could carry around the home instead of a full-fledged laptop. You would be actually "running" your powerful desktop off basically a second screen that you could carry around with you in the house.
I thought mattress tags were directed at the retailer, not the consumer. Anyway...
I could actually see a more broader effect (like you said if people do bother to read the disclaimer) - people equating Linux with being illegal. Generally, Linux is something you download off the internet instead of buying in stores...kinda shady.
I do think the enterprise is kind of an interesting scenario. You convince management to get this free software for all the desktops, then they see this message. Is Linux free because it is illegal? Is it free because it is stripped down? Is it free to suck you into buying all these add-ons?
>>I think this will get shot down... or at least we can only hope and pray that it does.
I believe the court case does not prevent an individual from reselling at whatever price as long as you didn't have an agreement that would cause you to. I believe what it does allow is someone to refuse to sell to you unless you agreed to resell at a certain minimum price. That is if I remember correctly; the article doesn't really get into this and mainly just kind of talks about how people already inclined to take frivolous action against eBayers will also try to invoke this court decision in the process (again, frivously).
>>You do realize that the entire theme of BSG is forgiveness, right? I would have thought that by the end of season 3 (what, with the whole court case against Baltar, and the relatively obvious course of the upcoming season 4) that this theme would have been readily apparent to everyone by now.:(
I'm saying that it is a flaw to my enjoyment, and it would be better without it (for me). It comes across as another TV cliche where actions have no consequences as long as you are a main character. The only difference is that at least BSG does not always require the obligatory "save everybody's ass and all sins are forgiven" cop-out used in most other shows (though I believe it has been employed at times).
Like I said, I thought a cross of Pegasus and Galactica philosophy would be better TV. AND more "gritty" like everybody and their fuckin brother claim the show is. Throwing a main character out the airlock is more gritty than forgiving them and pretending it never happened and giving them their position and responsibility back.
I didn't have any problem with it; my wife did. I thought it made for some very interesing episodes, but I could see how it would turn some of the audience off.
I think going way beyond what Star Trek or Babylon 5 would ever do has a lot of merit, but I've seen a lot of the fans of those shows just kind of blow Farscape off like it never existed.
It was gritty, but it still had problems, even in the 1st and 2nd seasons. For example, bridge officers commit mutiny, but everything is forgiven and they get their positions back. I think in some ways life on Pegasus was more realistic; maybe a blend of the two would have been better TV.
>> I had my wife into the show, she is a SCIFI fan of the BSG, Stargate, DR Who, Trek and Star Wars type. FarScape just turned out to be WAY too much for her at times.
The same thing happened for my wife. She is not that big of a sci-fi fan, but she likes Stargate and is usually fine watching much of the sci-fi I watch, but Farscape got too much for her. (Dr Who was too much for her too, but a different kind of too much.)
Slashdot Mirror
>>...let's look at the companies today...wars that only applied to nerds in the late 80s.
Much superior technology, loved by nerds, totally crushed...I owned an Amiga and that experience has made me more conservative about embracing new computer technology.
You are claiming the Atari was better than the Amiga, but then you go onto compare it to the PC instead of the Amiga.
I think the whole "game machine" thing is one of the things that helped to kill the Amiga, so I don't see how that would have been an advantage to Atari either.
Back then computers were still divided into "home" computers and business computers, and Atari and Amiga were placed in the "home" category because of the games (and color, hi-res graphics, audio, etc...). They were never really taken that seriously by business which really hurt their market share.
Amiga was really hurt too because not many people bought Wordperfect when it became available. All the main business software makers like lotus and dbase abandoned their cross-development when Wordperfect had weak sales (part of the reason for Wordperfect's failure was that it did not really take much advantage of the GUI and other features available that people bought the Amiga for to begin with.)
But can you add a faster video card, harddrive, or cpu to it any time you want? Do you have 10,000rpm drives or RAID as even an option?
Generally the desktop will have faster (and much easier to replace) components. My $1000 system will blow away a $1000 laptop, and it will still have a snappier feel than a $2000 laptop. External add-ons (like a Blu Ray drive) are usually twice as much as the cheaper internal options available for a desktop.
The harddrives and video cards are generally faster in desktops, and if you build it yourself you will probably have a much better, faster motherboard as well. If you build it yourself, you can also overclock some CPUs. My Core 2 Duo processor goes from about 2ghz to 3ghz by just changing one setting in the bios.
Porn does teach you to ejaculate outside of the orifices, so I guess it could be good AIDs prevention in some way. Semen in the eye might be risky behavior though. A lot of porn does not encourage condom use though, and it often encourages anal sex.
I don't know what effect porn has otherwise. Does jackin' it to porn satisfy their sexual urges, or does looking at porn make them want to go out and have sex more?
I don't think a kid occasionaly coming across porn is that big of deal, but free and unfettered access to it by kids is probably not that good of an idea. If nothing else, it is a time management issue - and porn can be a big time-sink.
>>There's nothing evil about porn
These computers are for schooling. They can't learn as much if they are too busy whackin' it.
>>TFA mentions that Stanford and other schools charge high "Reconnection" fees after they block your MAC for sharing files. Why don't they just do something like that and make a load of money?
I think there needs to be due process, but I think the punishments should be even stricter. It should be about teaching the students to be better citizens and to prepare them for the real world. Review the case like they would any type of academic misconduct, and for minor violations, especially with freshmen and sophmores, you get a slap on the wrist or maybe pay a small fine. But for excessive downloading and repeat offenders, especially for seniors, they should be expelled like you would be for cheating or plagiarism, or like you would be fired from your job. You could even have everybody sign an acknowledgment that they can be expelled for illegal downloading.
>>It doesn't help the students, and it doesn't seem to me to help society.
Part of the role of the university is to make the student a better citizen, and obeying the laws is part of that. It also gets them ready for the real world - you can't download anything you want at work and not expect to get fired.
>>Ahh yes, because somewhere along the line "guilty until proven innocent" became the de facto standard.
That's the way it usually works on campus. In the case of academic misconduct, if a professor accuses you of cheating or plagiarism, the burden of proof is much more heavy on the student.
I think the people that made away with all the money were doing more than just playing the game so this really isn't an issue - they would stick one dollar in, then cash out without playing and recieve 10 dollars, and they would keep doing this over and over. No matter how foriegn the game looked, those that made a lot of money (and who are in trouble) were the ones who figured this out. Your average gambler would just put money in, and either play till it was gone or until he hit a good size payout.
What about the whole digital convergence thing, like with TVs? I personally want more and more screen space. A laptop is kind of a limited paradigm - looking at the world through a 15" window.
Does it have a 22" (or even larger) wide screen and a full size keyboard? Can you upgrade/repair it yourself?
Desktops always just feel a lot faster to me. Maybe it has changed lately, but the harddrives used to always be painfully slow in laptops. I had a laptop that I thought was fine, but once I started using a new desktop with 22" widescreen and 10,000rpm hardrives, the laptop is a painful experience.
That looks interesting, but I was thinking more of a just a 2nd display rather than a remote desktop on a lightweight computer. The original price on that thing was the same as a laptop - no wonder it failed. At $200 it might be okay for somethings, but $400 still seems a little steep. I don't imagine the video card was too great, while in the case of a pure 2nd display it would be utilizing whatever video card your desktop has.
My connection is close to unusable at the moment and for a little while before this announcement. I too wondered if they were related.
Or you could just put relays in line of sight of one another. You wouldn't need too many if each device also could relay.
You could wire a transmitter/access point into everyroom near the lights. You would still have to wire indoors, but you would have untethered movement.
Could this kind of bandwidth run a remote display?
I always thought it would be cool to have a pad that was nothing more than a screen and input device that you could carry around the home instead of a full-fledged laptop. You would be actually "running" your powerful desktop off basically a second screen that you could carry around with you in the house.
I thought mattress tags were directed at the retailer, not the consumer. Anyway...
I could actually see a more broader effect (like you said if people do bother to read the disclaimer) - people equating Linux with being illegal. Generally, Linux is something you download off the internet instead of buying in stores...kinda shady.
I do think the enterprise is kind of an interesting scenario. You convince management to get this free software for all the desktops, then they see this message. Is Linux free because it is illegal? Is it free because it is stripped down? Is it free to suck you into buying all these add-ons?
>>I think this will get shot down... or at least we can only hope and pray that it does.
I believe the court case does not prevent an individual from reselling at whatever price as long as you didn't have an agreement that would cause you to. I believe what it does allow is someone to refuse to sell to you unless you agreed to resell at a certain minimum price. That is if I remember correctly; the article doesn't really get into this and mainly just kind of talks about how people already inclined to take frivolous action against eBayers will also try to invoke this court decision in the process (again, frivously).
>>You do realize that the entire theme of BSG is forgiveness, right? I would have thought that by the end of season 3 (what, with the whole court case against Baltar, and the relatively obvious course of the upcoming season 4) that this theme would have been readily apparent to everyone by now. :(
I'm saying that it is a flaw to my enjoyment, and it would be better without it (for me). It comes across as another TV cliche where actions have no consequences as long as you are a main character. The only difference is that at least BSG does not always require the obligatory "save everybody's ass and all sins are forgiven" cop-out used in most other shows (though I believe it has been employed at times).
Like I said, I thought a cross of Pegasus and Galactica philosophy would be better TV. AND more "gritty" like everybody and their fuckin brother claim the show is. Throwing a main character out the airlock is more gritty than forgiving them and pretending it never happened and giving them their position and responsibility back.
I didn't have any problem with it; my wife did. I thought it made for some very interesing episodes, but I could see how it would turn some of the audience off.
I think going way beyond what Star Trek or Babylon 5 would ever do has a lot of merit, but I've seen a lot of the fans of those shows just kind of blow Farscape off like it never existed.
It was gritty, but it still had problems, even in the 1st and 2nd seasons. For example, bridge officers commit mutiny, but everything is forgiven and they get their positions back. I think in some ways life on Pegasus was more realistic; maybe a blend of the two would have been better TV.
I thought they did a movie or two to wrap it up past "to be continued" episode.
>> I had my wife into the show, she is a SCIFI fan of the BSG, Stargate, DR Who, Trek and Star Wars type. FarScape just turned out to be WAY too much for her at times.
The same thing happened for my wife. She is not that big of a sci-fi fan, but she likes Stargate and is usually fine watching much of the sci-fi I watch, but Farscape got too much for her. (Dr Who was too much for her too, but a different kind of too much.)
>>Farscape was always far too silly for me
It really wasn't that silly. The muppets would kind of lead you to believe that; you just had to get used to them.
I actually got my wife to watch it for a while. She got past the muppets, but could not get past the existentialism.